


Come Over Here and Kiss Me

by Jillypups



Series: Kissing Starks [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Rickeen, Romance, Squee, kiss the girl universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-02 13:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2813990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jillypups/pseuds/Jillypups
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Rickon Stark meets Shireen Baratheon.</p><p>Kiss The Girl universe. </p><p> </p><p>  <a href="http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/105733275433/come-over-here-and-kiss-me-rickon-and-shireens">Picset!</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [paperheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperheart/gifts).



He flicks his cigarette with well-practiced precision, watches it arc halfway across the street where it lands in a puddle with a fleeting hiss of ember before it’s out, drowned and invisible now against the black of well-worn downtown asphalt and the streetlight-mirror of the puddle. A taxi sweeps past with a couple of laughing drunk girls in the back, sending up short lived sprays of water with each of its tires. Rickon doesn’t mind if it starts raining again, because then there’d be something out tonight that would match his mood. Wex and Wylla are busy making out in the back of his four-door while Jory and Lyra sit on its trunk rolling a joint, and they’re all laughter and sex jokes, snickering over their papers about the two guys they ditched at the party they’ve just left.

“He had an absolute mush mouth,” Jory says to her twin sister, though you wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking at them; Jory’s hair is bleached blonde with green and blue tips while Lyra’s got brown hair styled like Betty Page, has a lip ring and eats meat while Jorelle hasn’t touched animal products since they started high school. Rickon glances up in time to get a demonstration of exactly what a mush mouth looks like, because she’s thrusting her widened tongue out like a drugged dog, mouth drooping like she’s all shot up with Novocain, and even he has to laugh at the sight of her, dark as his mood is. “All bleh, bleh, bleh,” she says, cringing with a laugh before licking the glue on the paper, rolling the joint back and forth between her expert fingers before twisting both ends shut.

“Mine was the jack hammer tongue guy,” Lyra says, and she bangs her fist machine gun quick on the roof of the car,  _bangbangbang,_  making Rickon grin because the one time he made out with her she whimpered and sighed plenty, and now Wylla starts laughing from between Wex and the back seat upholstery. Rickon glowers.

Goddammit, cut it out,” Wex says, his voice muffled from whatever he’s doing, and Rickon rolls his eyes, turns and mutters to himself. Yes, they are best friends and yes, Rickon kept it to himself when he started looking at Wylla the way he sees Gendry look at Arya, but he can’t help but bear Wex the smallest of grudges. It should be _his_ hands on Wylla right now, _his_ mouth on hers, the back of _his_ car she’s in if he had one, let alone a driver’s license.

“Anyways,” she says with one last bang of her fist on top of the car, “it was almost a blessing those cops came. Another few drinks and I still might’ve fucked him, and I can only imagine how horrible _that_ would have been,” and he snorts at that, fishing around for another cigarette. Once it’s lit he walks his lighter over so Jory can light the joint, and after she takes the first long hit she trades him, smoking his cigarette while he tries to reclaim the buzz he worked on so diligently over at the Greyjoys’. The party was at Theon’s, and while his parents are out of the country on a second honeymoon they’ve all been using the place like a flop house. Tonight marked the third time the cops have come, and  _this_  time they brought a nice fat orange sticker for the window, which is why they’ve driven downtown to try and salvage the last Saturday night of their spring break. Theon’s partying days are over.

Fine by Rickon; he and Greyjoy nearly got into a fist fight earlier, after his stupid cokehead friend Ramsay got all up in Wex’s face, and while Lyra is happy the cops came to stop her from screwing Mr. Jackhammer, Rickon’s relieved because he’s pretty sure he and Wex would have gotten their asses handed to them. But it’s left him in a pissed off, pent up way, it’s why he’s pacing the sidewalk across the narrow street when the cop car rounds the corner and heads down the rain soaked street towards them. Lyra, who’s working on the joint now, says  _Oh fuck_ and flings the thing in the puddle next to Rickon’s cigarette butt. At this point they might as well throw the night in there too, because they’ve also got a fifth of vodka in the passenger side footwell.

“Wex, gimme the keys,” Lyra says as she and Jory scramble off the trunk and to the driver side door, one after the other, two butts in the air as they crawl like children through a playground tunnel to their respective seats up front.

“They’re still in the ignition,” he shouts amidst the clink of an undone belt buckle, popping up like a jack in the box as Wylla sits up beside him and pats her hair, and they are four strings of expletives as they start the car without him.  But he knows it’s not to be assholes; he’s halfway down the sidewalk, at least fifty feet away and there is no time to get there. He stands and stares at the cop rolling towards them, slow and suspicious, and Wex’s Dodge is between the police car and Ric, and he says  _Shit_  because if he gets arrested his parents are going to  _kill_  him.

 “Rickon, get the fuck out of here,” Wylla shouts with her head sticking out of the back window, pretty lipstick a smear from Wex’s mouth, and though she’s got another guy’s spit on her tongue he’s still hopeful because she’s the one who calls to him . “I’ll text you later and we’ll come get you,” and he nods once, watching Jory steer the car towards the cop before he books it down the street, taking the first turn he finds into an alley, his combat boots splashing rainwater up to the shins of his dirty jeans as he sprints as fast as he can.

 

The rain’s stopped for the time being but it feels no less secluded and tucked away here in her grandfather’s parlor, all bright light and clean edges. The Pixies music coming out of the speakers mingles with the buzzing of her work, the lyrics she can hear blend in with the swipes of her towel as she dabs clean the artwork after every few strokes of the three needle machine she’s using. It’s a happy place she’s in, doing what she loves, and though it’s already 10pm she is perked up and alert, fueled by the artistry and attentive to the calm hand her vocation requires of her. Her hand is still but her client isn’t, hasn’t been for several minutes now, and finally Shireen sits back and takes her foot off the pedal, and the parlor is quiet now save for the music. The woman beneath the art gives an audible sigh and props herself up in the chair, elbows to the vinyl as she looks over her shoulder at Shireen.

“Sorry,” she says with a shake of her head, and Shireen waves her off. “I had no idea it would hurt so much, and now I can feel it in my knees. How far have you gotten?”

“It’s because it’s on your spine,” Shireen explains, sitting back in her seat and gazing at the needles in her hand. “It’ll travel through your nerves. And I hate to say it, Mya, but I’ve got a good two hours left,” she says, inspecting her handiwork; it will be a vine choked tower stretching along her spine, spearing through clouds, but so far it’s just an outline. She’s had to work slower due to the jumpiness of her client, and she has to admit she’s secretly relieved when they agree to a second appointment on Monday. Shireen tapes the gauze over it and gives her the sheet of care instructions and soon it’s just her, standing on the glossy polished wood floor in a world of art and color, bright warmth and the glow of alleyway light that bleeds in through the floor to ceiling windows out front. She loves it here, has loved it since her grandfather Davos started apprenticing her at thirteen, letting her add her novice art to his forearms, near on black now thanks to all the Navy ink he got in his youth. It’s a world she can sink into, a world that embraces her, a world of laying shape to skin and people who don’t seem to judge her for the shapes on her face, the wicked scars from chicken pox that have been the source of shame and ridicule since she was nine.

She hums as she cleans her work station, stripping off her gloves and dumping them in the hazmat trashcan with a sigh, popping her back from sitting hunched over Mya’s back for more than an hour. She’s in a good mood when the radio starts playing “Skinny Love,”and she frowns because her mood is all thoughts of Edric and how bright his eyes were even when he dumped her, it’s seeing photos of him kissing a girl on Instagram not two days later, and now she’s a storm cloud.

“Fucking asshole,” she whispers to no one, wondering if her grandfather is still awake, wondering if he’d let her come hang out for a bit, and she’s texting him when there is a blur outside the storefront window, the bells on the door are a cheerful burst of jingle-jangle, and in runs some tall skinny kid with an undone mohawk.

“Hide me,” he gusts out with a froggy low voice, chest heaving under his black t-shirt, and before she has time to open her mouth he rolls his eyes and jogs past her to her granddad’s desk and like a kid playing hide and seek he immediately squats and ducks under it.

“What the hell,” she says, pocketing her phone and staring at the desk, but when she looks back to the alley with half an expectation to see more kids looking for hiding places, to see someone laughingly giving chase, she sees a cop car drift past. _So it is a game after all,_ she thinks, a more serious version of sharks and minnows with the police, and she turns back towards the desk with her arms folded across her chest and her eyes narrowed.

“They’re gone, buddy, so now it’s your turn to get gone,” she says, walking around the desk to glare down at him, and she think of wolf pups with that sheepish grin on his face, white teeth sharp in his mouth, the hair in his eyes as black and as dyed as hers.

“They’ve been following me a while,” he says, voice more even now that he’s had time to catch his breath. “Please, five minutes, just until they lose interest. I swear I figured they’d follow the car and not me. Why try for one when they could have nailed four?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says, trying to snap at him, but then she realizes he’s not even mentioned her face, that he’s looking her full on, but it’s her eyes he’s looking at and not the pockmarks on her cheek. Maybe it’s out of gratitude for that miracle, the reason why she sits down in the office chair and listens as he explains himself: Separated from his friends though it sounds more to her like getting ditched, and he’s getting harassed by cops even though pot is legal now.

“Yeah, but you’re clearly not twenty one,” Shireen says, and he shrugs, and it’s kind of adorable, this blue eyed boy shrugging while folded up under a desk as if it’s the most comfortable place in the world. “How old are you?”

“How old are _you,_ ” he grins cheekily, and if he thinks she’s the type of girl who thinks women shouldn’t reveal their age then he’s wrong. Shireen lifts her chin.

“I’ll be twenty in a month,” she says, and he grins.

“My birthday’s next month too,” he says, and then they find out their birthdays are two days apart, May 10th and May 12th, but she’s pretty sure there’s more than a year or two between them, and she asks his age again.

“Age is just a number,” he says, and she laughs despite herself. “What’s your name? Do you work here, do you _own_ this place?” and his eyes widen at the prospect. She tells him her name and learns he’s Rickon, tells him her grandfather owns the place, that it’s called Seaworthy Tattoo because of his time in the Navy, and he tells her the closest he can get to that is his uncle Benjen and cousin Jon being firefighters.

“Are your folks into tattoos too or is it just your gramps?” It’s conversational and light and she could just say yes to avoid the heaviness, but he’s easy to talk to and she doesn’t want to lie to him, because for some reason she knows he doesn’t deserve that. Shireen shakes her head.

“My folks um, they’re down in San Diego, where I’m from. We don’t really get along,” she says with a deep, long inhale, trying to let it fill up the spaces where parental love should be, all the spaces that are empty. He frowns and she sighs out the breath. “I’ve lived with my grandfather since I was in middle school,” she says. “My dad was cheating on my mom with this crazy _bitch,_ and my mom started hitting the bottle pretty hard. I refused to go stay with my dad and that she devil, so I came up here,” she says, finally lifting her gaze from her hands in her lap up to him _,_ and he is blue eyed frown and the drag of his fingers through his hair, and then finally he crawls out from under the desk.

“I’m so sorry, Shireen,” he says, unfolding his long legs as he stands in front of her, tall for his age – whatever _that_ may be – and towering over her where she sits, but then he slides into a sit on the desk in front of her. “Is your mom better?” She tells him she’s gotten help but that the damage is done, that there is a loss of trust and a serious reluctance to go back, and he’s pretty cute, the curling way he smiles when she brightens up and tells him about her apprenticeship, how Davos pinned her as a natural when she showed him her artwork, how she got her own work station on her 18 th birthday.

“What about you, Rickon? What’s your family like, are they all trouble makers like you?” and she’s got a little flare of pride in her heart when she makes him laugh.

“Well, I’m definitely the most interesting,” he says with a grin, launching into the rundown of a huge family, and with four brothers and sisters, a fisherman in Alaska and a nanny in Arizona, a sister with an independent streak and a disabled genius brother, Shireen can kind of see why Rickon runs wild and seems to get away with it. He tells her he’s into dirt bikes and music, wants to learn how to play the bass as soon as he gets a job to save enough money to buy one. She can practically hear the girls screaming and pressing themselves against the stage, all for the tall bass player with the mohawk, and it makes her smile.

“Man I could use a cigarette,” he says, and Shireen could use one herself, but then he says _Goddammit_ as he pats his pockets. “You don’t by chance have a lighter do you? My friend took off with mine,” and she nods as she stands.

“It’s right here,” she says, leaning across him to open the drawer just beside his knee, and when she rights herself he’s looking at her mouth, head bowed as he studies her, and she feels a thrill at this capture, this snare of his attention. Edric was a bastard in the end but he gave her looks like this, heavy like ripe fruit, ready for the pluck, but she steps back with a breath that is shakier than she’d like. “Here,” she echoes herself, holding up the lighter between their bodies.

“Thanks,” he murmurs when he takes it from her, fingers a brush against hers, and they walk to the door side by side until he stops and holds open the door, bells sounding as merry and bright as they did when they announced his drop into her life. “Ladies first,” Rickon grins, and she rolls her eyes, but when she steps outside with Rickon behind her, Shireen can’t help but grin herself.

 

She is the coolest girl he’s ever met and he’s wondering how to tell her that when they step outside, wondering how to put to words that she’s spunky and sweet, that he likes the way her eyes go bright, dark blue as they are, when she talks about her job or her grandfather, that she’s built like a birthday present. He’s mulling it over as he steps outside, and though he’s been in the parlor with her for over an hour he still takes a quick look left and right, and she laughs as she takes the lighter out of his hands.

“I think you’re in the clear, Capone,” she says as she lights her cigarette, the glow of orange lighting her face and casting shadows in those little marks on the one side of her face, and he resists the urge to touch them. _For now,_ he thinks, because he’s determined to get her number even if it means lying about his age. He bends his head and cups his hands around the flame when she flicks the lighter again for him, and the sides of his palms rest on her little fist, and he grins when he looks up from the end of his lit cigarette and sees her looking at him.

“That’s a cool one,” he says, daring to reach out and let a finger drift down the tattoo of a stag on her left arm, and when she shivers under his touch it does not escape his attention. He has some experience with girls, nothing like Wex, who’s a bigger whore than the ones who actually do it for money, and he knows that this crackle between them is what they call chemistry.

“Yeah,” she says as she looks down at the deer, “The first one Davos did for me, actually. I like animals,” she explains, and then she takes him on a tour of her life and what each tattoo means, here with the smell of wet asphalt he’s always loved, the scent and curl of cigarette smoke and the solitary streetlight that casts them in soft warm shadow even though the air is cooling as it gets later and later.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket when it chimes and he gazes down at his screen, at the bubbles of texts that Wylla has been sending him for an hour now.

“Anything interesting?” she asks, and he shakes his head, slipping the phone back in his pocket.

“Nope,” and they’re smiling at each other as if they understand each other, but Rickon thinks they probably do. “So you have a boyfriend, I bet,” he says and she rolls her eyes, hugging herself with one arm as she takes a drag and leans against the window with the curving SEAWORTHY TATTOO painted on it.

“I did,” she says. “But he dumped me for another girl. Some blonde with big tits and a spray tan,” she says, and a swift appraisal, a drop and lift of his gaze comes back with the knowledge that she’s doing just fine in the tits department, and while he doesn’t put _that_ to words he  tells her that he thinks spray tans are stupid. She looks up at him, scrutinizing, before she smiles. “Same here.”

“He’s a fucking idiot then,” he says, and then he sucks in a breath for courage. “You’re the coolest girl I’ve ever met, Shireen,” and he is proud of that smile on her face, the way it lights her up here in this dark wet alley. She’s a fall of dyed hair on one side and a field of shorn black on the other, is kitty-cat eyeliner and a multitude of color and shape, of art and swirl and beauty. She fascinates him.

“What about you, Mr. Age Is Just A Number? You have a little girlfriend riding around town being chased by the cops?” She grins when he laughs at that, her eyebrows a subtle lift when he shakes his head.

“I liked a girl but she’s fucking my best friend. Kind of kills the romance, you know?” She studies him, running her pinky along her lower lip before dropping the hand to bring her cigarette to her mouth, and she smirks as she exhales through her nose.

“Well then she’s an idiot,” she says, making him grin because he knows what’s coming next, and it makes him feel like he’s just won the lottery. “Because you’re the coolest boy I’ve met, Rickon.”

“Yeah?” he says, rocking back on the heels of his boots before coming back to the balls of his feet, tipping forward a little, bringing himself closer to her. He doesn’t _feel_ like the coolest but he’s not about to argue, not with a girl like this, a _woman_ like this.

“Yeah,” she nods, and he grins.

“You should come over here and kiss me then,” he says lightly, and she laughs, head tossed back to expose her throat, and he thinks spray tans are lame because the milk of her skin makes him think of china dolls. China dolls with shaved heads and rainbows of color on their arms.

“Aren’t _you_ forward,” she says with a grin, eyeing him over her cigarette before she takes a final drag and  flicks it behind him, and he can hear the fizzle as it lands in a puddle.

“A kiss on the cheek then,” he says, taking a step towards her, and she’s looking at his boots, how they’re nearly toe to toe with her camouflage converses, the forward stretch of her legs the only thing keeping him away from her in that lean of hers against the window.

“The cheek, huh,” she says, and he twists away from her to flick his cigarette, hoping it lands next to hers, and he turns back to her, raking his fingers through his hair to get it out of the way, because he’s got big plans for this, for her, for them.

“Yeah. Just a little kiss to remember you by,” and she laughs with a shake of her head, pressing her shoulders against the window to shove off and stand upright before him, and she tilts her head back to look up at him.

“I’m probably going to regret this, huh,” Shireen says, and he lifts a hand to his heart as if he has narrowly avoided heart failure, and she gusts a laugh as she gets on her tiptoes to reach him. He turns his face to receive the press of her lips, he can feel the brush of her nose against his cheekbones and he uses that as a way to gauge her proximity, and in that moment he turns into her, claims the kiss with his mouth, steals it from his cheek in a sweet, hot second.

She freezes against him and he very nearly panics, wonders if he’s ruined everything, if she’ll slap him or worse, refuse to give him her number. But then her body goes loose and she is cigarette smoke and peppermint candy when she opens her mouth against his, her tongue a hot slide against his, and time stops for Rickon. He’s got chills at the feel of her hands on his back, he’s got her face in his own hands, his thumbs two brushstrokes across her cheekbones, smooth on one side and pocked on the other before he pushes one hand through the thicket of hair on one side to hold the nape of her neck. He’s got something precious here, and it’s an unbroken moment of undeterminable length, with the black of midnight behind him and the brilliance of light in the parlor behind her.

“How old did you say you were,” she murmurs against his mouth, and he runs his thumb across her scars once more.

“Old enough,” he says, and she sighs before kissing him again.

“If you say so,” she says, and he feels another buzz of a text message in his pocket, hears another chime, but it’s forgotten in a second because he’s asked a question and Shireen has answered it, because she’s got his lip between her teeth before he’s got the feel of her tongue, because she’s pressing her heart to his and he thinks maybe, maybe they’re beating out a hello, one heart to another


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Frozensnares. 
> 
> June, 2016, Rickon and Shireen head down to California to camp beachside at San Elijo state park. 
> 
> [Picset that started it all](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/116037828113/kiss-the-girl-come-over-here-and-kiss-me-universe)

They’ve been here two weeks already, using the hose off stations at the edge of the campground for showers, though Rickon has long since grown used to the rub of salt and sand in his skin and his hair, the taste of it on his tongue when he kisses his way around her.  It’s why they rode his dirt bike down to the courthouse yesterday, so they wouldn’t lose their prime real estate: a parking spot that butts up against the scrubby, succulent-choked earth that slopes steeply down to the beach.

_“It’s too big, I can’t get on that thing from the ground,” Shireen says in her black tie-dyed sundress she bought at a gas station gift shop in the California desert. He’s in cargo shorts and a button down shirt, has washed his hair best he can with a garden hose and hotel shampoo. They are both in untied Converses, they are both tanned, and they are both grinning._

_“If I had a nickel for how many times a woman’s said that to me,” he says, laughing when she slaps his arm. He walk-steers the dirt bike to the open tailgate of Shireen’s busted up truck where she sits under the camper shell , his legs just long enough to manage it, and she hops from one to the other, arms around him, her helmet a thunk against his._

_“You’d have one nickel,” she says, voice a hollowed out scoop of ice cream from inside her helmet._

_“Yeah, but it’s_ your _nickel,” he says, right before putting all his weight onto one foot to kick start the bike, and he grins when her grip tightens around his ribs. They do a slow U-turn around the truck, waving to Mrs. Blackbar, who is smoking a joint and smiling behind a pair of cat-eye sunglasses._

_And then two hours of traffic and a forty minute line down at Del Mar city hall later, they are married._

They’ve been here two weeks already, have been married for one day, less than that considering it’s just after dawn, and when he shifts and twists onto his back he hears the slosh of whiskey in the bottle somewhere down by his feet. He smiles, eyes still closed, stretches his limbs as far as the truck bed allows his long frame. The smell of the sea claims him, pulls him from his sleep, though it’s just as likely her absence is as much to blame. The flannel sheets they’ve tucked around the inflatable mattress cling to his bare legs, and he shivers once he kicks them off.

“Shireen?” His voice is the croak of a frog, dried out from lack of sleep and the midnight snack of cigarettes and whiskey, and he rubs the heels of his palms in his eyes, sweeping away the sleep dust. When he blinks and focuses he sees her down at the edge of the water, the rising sun casting just the back of her head with the splintery, reedy rays of early light. Even though she’s no taller than a toothpick from this distance she’s still gorgeous to him, a sight for sore eyes, the one scratch to the itches in his fingers and in his heart, on the tapestry of his soul.

Rickon hisses from the cold jab of asphalt under his bare feet once he’s done a sort of spastic worm breakdance into his damp swimming trunks, and he’s a shiver as he wince-walks across the brush and bramble down to the sand. His hands are jammed in the front pockets of his pullover hoodie, and he’s got his beach legs by now, doesn’t feel the scrape of sand anymore on the once tender arches of his feet, doesn’t feel the burn in his calves from the uneven footing. He sort of wishes they could live here at San Elijo forever, and when she turns at the sound of his wolf whistle, her hair a wind rubbed tousle, the sun a pale pink bloom on her face, he sort of wishes they could live here in this _moment_ forever.

“Good morning, hubs,” she says with a grin, an exhale of  smoke chasing her words on a sea breeze into his face, and he reaches out wordlessly for the cigarette in her hand. She’s in a droopy sweater and one of those long dresses she has to hold up when she’s walking up or down stairs.

“Hey wifey,” he replies, inhaling a drag of smoke over her head as she folds herself against his chest, arms two pinned wings between them as he wraps his arms across her shoulders.  _Wife._  The major things he has in his life are very few: His high school diploma; his bike; his apprenticeship. And now a wife. It is delicious madness, the perfect sort of tomfoolery, the sort of thing that makes the single most sense in all his life.

“I wanted to see the sun rise on the first day of our marriage,” she says, voice a muffle against his camouflage sweatshirt, and it’s a like the petals of a flower opening when her arms unfold and snake around him, when her head moves so she can look up at him. She’s brown as a berry compared to how pale she was before, all save for those pockmarks of cream against the café au lait of her, and it’s that cheek he brushes with his thumb before extending the forefingers holding her cigarette. She smiles, turns towards it for a drag.

“And how was it?” Shireen turns and presses her back to his chest, forearms draping over his where they wrap around her just across her belly, and he rests his chin on the top of her head. The ocean is a seesaw roll and undulation out past the break line, and he thinks of words like  _whoosh_ and  _whoa,_ rides the waves with his gaze to where they crash onto the beach.

“Beautiful and perfect, just like you,” she says simply, and he feels her ribs expand with an inhale as he squeezes her. It’s chilly and bright and beautiful, all wind whips and the caws of gulls overhead, spots of white on a pale blue sky. “I can’t believe we got  _married,_ ” she says on the exhale, and he’d be paranoid that she has doubts if there wasn’t that dreamy quality to her voice that makes him smile and kiss the salt in her black hair.

“I dunno,” he says, bending his knees as he tightens his grip around her waist, hoisting her up when he straightens to his full height. “I never thought about _marriage_ , really,” he says, grunting with effort now as she squirms his arms, as he walks towards the slow crash fizz of the ocean, “but ever since I met you I had an idea that I didn’t ever want to be apart.”

“Rickon, goddammit, don’t you dare, it’s going to be freezing,” she says, knees high and almost pinned against his arms and her chest in a futile attempt to avoid the cold slap of the broken waves, the shattered-glass sting of the salt. He grits his teeth as he walks through them, goosebumps a riot against the swirl of kelp and sea foam. “No no no no no noooo,” she squeals as the water drags on the long skirt of her dress, as it wraps itself around his knees.

“Well, I’m supposed to carry the bride over the threshold, Shir,” he says, bracing himself for the inevitable as the water rises above his thighs with the next swell of waves ready to crash against the sand. “This is the only threshold we’ve got right now, and I’m  _nothing_  if not a man of tradition,” he says, but just as he lets her go she flings her arms up behind her, latching them around the back of his neck, and he is dragged down into the frigid early morning Pacific with his wife. It’s a rush and pull of water, the taste of tears and the feel of her arms around him, her hair against his face, the brush of her cheek against his mouth when she twists in his arms. It’s like being held by a mermaid. It sounds _sparkling_ here, underwater, electric and crackling, and it’s fucking  _freezing_  but it’s also wonderful because it’s the most alive he’s ever felt.

“Oh God, I hate you,” she gasps when they break the surface again, her drenched cardigan nearly dragged off her arms as she struggles to pull it back up to her shoulders, as she sweeps the water from her face.

“Nah, you love me,” he says after spitting out a mouthful of seawater, grinning when he blinks away the saline and looks down at her. She grins despite the chatter of her teeth, cups her hand against the surface of water and scoops a splash towards him, and as numb as he is, he doesn’t feel it when it sprays in his face.

“Yeah I do,” she says as they trudge back to the beach, hand in hand, as she picks bits of kelp out of the hood of his sweatshirt, and they stand shivering by the tailgate of the truck, helping each other to wring the ocean out of dress and shorts and sweaters before stripping, dropping each article of clothing with a wet slap to the asphalt before scrambling damp and shivering and naked into the back of the truck.

“I love you so much,” she says later, her hair a seaweed sprawl on the pillow as he moves inside her, as her hips rock like the water just beyond them, flannel sheets a cling to his back, to her shins when she lifts her legs to lock him in place.

“I love you, too,” he pants, licking the salt off of her throat, tasting it on her mouth when she drives her fingers into his hair and pulls him down. “And you’re mine, all mine, you’re my wife,” he says, coming moments later to words like  _Rickon_ and  _Husband,_  to  _Oh my god I love you,_  to the sound of the sea and the wind and the gulls, to the smell of the ocean and someone’s early morning campfire, to the taste of this love that comes without a price, to the taste of freedom that comes with belonging to Shireen.

 

It’s their third trip to the laundromat in as many weeks, no small feat when they have to use a dirt bike for transportation to keep their prime real estate, and since it’s a Monday morning they’re the only ones here, two sandy-kneed, suntanned idiots in love. She’s got her hair knotted up in a bun and wrapped up in a handkerchief, is sucking on a ring pop and reading last week’s Sunday paper when she catches Rickon trying to shave in the laundromat sink using her compact mirror and a half lathered bar of soap.  

“Ow, fuck,” he says with a hiss, and she tosses the newspaper down onto the plastic chair next to hers, takes a sip of her In-N-Out iced tea before unfolding her legs to cross the linoleum.

“Here, baby, let me,” she says, and he sighs testily when he hands over his instruments of self-torture. “You’ve already nicked yourself twice,” she murmurs.

Shireen soaks a handful of paper towels before hopping up backwards onto an empty washing machine next to the sink, spreading her legs so he can stand between her knees. She soaks and soaps his face as he gazes irritably up to the ceiling tiles, but before long, he’s relaxed under the attention of her administrations, lifts and tilts his chin obediently whenever she asks. His hands are long-fingered and cool on the tops of her thighs, as they absent-mindedly fiddle with the frays on her baggy cutoff shorts. For a time there is nothing but the sounds of tinny Beatles music piping through the speakers overhead, the tapping of the razor against the plastic sink tub and the run of water from the faucet when she needs to rinse it off. She pauses, blades against the flat plane of his cheek when she lifts her eyes and sees him looking at her. It’s the kind of gaze that steals away breaths and replaces them with giggles and sighs, or in this particular case with the silent drop of her jaw.

“Hi,” he murmurs, his face a slick sheen of a fresh shave, save for two more swipes through the remaining slather of soap. She bites her lip and smiles, finishes the job, mops both sides of his face with the soaked paper towels. Rivulets of water run down his face like rain on a window pane, and she catches them with the backs of her fingers.

“Hi,” she breathes, and she realizes that even after over three years together, after sleepovers and cooking together, after he nearly set her apartment on fire trying his hand at stir fry, after falling asleep in his bed while Rickon read back to her his school essays, after  _all of it,_ this is likely the most domesticated thing they’ve ever done together.

There is a flash in her mind’s eye, as resounding and clear as the clapping of a church bell. It’s a glimpse into the future where he is an old man with bowed shoulders covered in faded tattoos and she is an old woman with white hair, wrinkled like an old apple, shaving her husband’s face when his eyes and his hands fail him. Tears spring to her eyes, and when they slide down her face to the corners of her mouth, they taste like the sea.

“Babe, what’s wrong, you okay?” He’s a frown and the bend of his neck as he looks at her. Shireen shakes her head, and there comes that giggle now, wet and shivery like a minnow.

“Nothing’s wrong _,_  Ric,” she says, setting down to the razor to cup his wet face in her hands. She’s 22, married to an 18 year old trouble maker, married to the guy who still nips his tongue between his teeth when he plays video games. She’s the 22 year old woman who can’t seem to grow up no matter how she tries, who has a thrift store wedding ring on one hand and a half-sucked ring pop on the other.

She’d have it no other way.

“Everything’s amazing, now because we’re married.” Rickon grins, that easy boy-charm of his flickering over his face like lights on a disco ball. He’s fireworks and dazzle, he’s the husband who dumps his new wife in the ocean, but he’s the husband who kisses his new wife to sleep under the late afternoon sun just the same.

“We are, aren’t we?” he says, humming as he kisses her, his tongue a slide against his lower lip when he draws back. “That’s pretty sweet.”

“I know, right?” she says, but he tips his head towards her right hand that is still cupped around his damp cheek.

“I meant that,” he says, pulling her hand from his cheek, bending her fingers over his as he makes a move like he’s going to kiss her knuckles, but instead he puts her ring pop in his mouth. “Mmmm,” he says, and she laughs, slaps his face lightly with her free hand.

There is the jingle of bells as the door opens, and they pause, glancing over at the three middle aged women bustling in. They stop one at a time as they stare at Rickon and Shireen, the last two bumping into the first as their mouths drop at the scene unfolded before them.

“ _Mmmmmm,_ ” Rickon moans with exaggeration, eyes rolling back in his head as he performs obscene gestures on her ring pop. “Oh _yeah._ ” Even over the sex noises he’s making, and the peals of laughter Shireen cannot hold in, they can hear three scandalized gasps, which only prove to goad her husband even more.

 _I love you,_ she thinks as she laughs so hard her ribs hurt, as he slobbers all over her hand like a puppy, with such lusty gusto the three women turn tail and flee, high octave pinched voices leaving indignation and _quelle horreur_ in their wakes.  Rickon and Shireen are abandoned to laugh in each other’s arms, his mouth and chin tinged pink with candy stained saliva. _My god, I love you so much._

“Which one then, that one?” Shireen yells as she points to the latest firework burst in the sky over the ocean. They are watching a far off 4th of July show but it is no less spectacular for the distance, and Rickon is deciding which display reminds him most of Shireen, and when she points to the hot pink and lime green explosion in the sky, down there from his lap where her head rests, he mulls it over.

“Nope, not that one. Too ordinary,” he shouts over the crackles in the sky, over the cacophony of all the music that surrounds them. Each blanket that speckles the beach seems to have its own stereo or wonderboy with a guitar, and just from the handful that surround him and Shireen he can pick out cumbia, reggae, classic rock and 80’s music. It’s a clashing jangle but it somehow fits the spark and dazzle up there against the blackened sky, it somehow fits them both and only further drives home the fact that they’re right where they belong, where they are meant to be.

“Too ordinary? It’s a firework for god’s sake,” she laughs, twisting in his lap to look up at him. He grins down at her, his fingers a brush against the shorn side of her head; he’ll have to help her trim it after she helps him clean up his mohawk, once they get back. She smiles up at him, her face half cloaked in shadow, turns to nip at his fingers.

“Still not as good as you are,” he says, shrugging as he tips his head back to drink from the bottle of wine they’ve snuck down here, not that they are alone in that endeavor. There are calls for shots to the left, shrieks of _Bitch, you stole my beer_ to the right, and while it all feels like youthful endeavors, there’s Mrs. Blackbar dancing in the low tide with a backdrop of fireworks to light her up, her husband and grown son laughing beside her.

“Gimme some of that before you finish it,” Shireen says, rolling off his lap and onto her stomach to drink the last swallow of cheap red wine, and he feels the cool sea air in her absence, almost shivers from the lack of her. “Dammit, Ric, it’s gone. I bet the chips are done, too,” and he has to hand it to her, how well she knows him. Rickon grins and leaps to his feet, his head only a slight swim from their dinner of wine and Doritos.

“I will provide for my woman,” he says with a grunt, sweeping her a bow with a fusion of caveman chivalry, and he can hear her laugh mix in with the fireworks and music and chatter all around them.

He unlocks the front cab of the truck where they keep their luggage and valuables, rifles through the heaps of clean clothes and his wallet and Shireen’s purse, the mysterious world of women he has learned to navigate all because of her. He hears the clink of bottles and finds one under his messenger bag full of drawing pads and pens, grins as he opens the glove compartment for the corkscrew and a fresh pack of smokes.

“My lady awaits,” he says, hefting the bottle in his hand as he slams shut the truck door, picking up another bag of chips from the top of their cooler under the truck. He’s a loose limbed trot down the embankment towards the beach, the pale sand lit up with muted colors from the distant fireworks, and he’s gazing up at the sky with a heart full of fizzy joy before he notices a guy standing on the edge of their blanket. Rickon narrows his eyes, slows his amble to a walk as he assesses the scene.

Shireen is standing up now as well, her arms folded across her chest in a clear _Fuck off_ stance, something he’s never had trouble deciphering though this asshole seems not to understand the language. They are talking, but it’s not until he’s a few steps away that he can hear anything.

“I don’t have any coke and I don’t want to snort any, so move on and have a great 4th, okay?” Her voice is the clink of ice in a cold, cold drink, her posture about as chilly, but still this blond dickhead is smiling at her, trying to work his surfer boy charms, all until Shireen catches sight of Rickon and smiles with evident relief. “Look, my—” she starts, but blondie cuts her off when his gaze slides over to Rickon like an oil slick.

“Oh, what, your boyfriend’s here to fuck with me now?” He sounds unimpressed, and as immature and young as Rickon is, he can’t quite believe the display of idiocy from this cocksucker. His blood is as chilled as it is boiling but he bides his time, bites his tongue, takes a page from Shireen’s book and plays out the hand to see where the cards fall.

“Husband, actually,” Rickon says cheerfully, pulling the corkscrew out of his pocket, all forced nonchalance as if there is not some massive douche bag coming on to his wife. He jabs the pointed end into the cork, twisting it with suppressed force as he casts a bland gaze to the other guy.

“Oh, wow, husband,” he says sarcastically. “Jesus, sweetheart, like you need a knight in shining armor, you’re not even that hot,” he says before looking at Rickon again, who is staring at his angry wife before he drags his attention from her, settles it on this piece of shit. “What, tough guy, you gonna beat me up or something just for having a conversation?”

Rickon grins.

“I don’t have to,” he says, yanking out the cork with an audible pop right before the grand finale explodes in the sky, and it’s as if that is all Shireen needs to spring to action. She steps across their roughly woven blanket and shoves the guy with two hands to his shoulders, her black hair flying like ink in the ocean air, a spray of black he can only see because of the fireworks just beyond them.

“Fuck you, asshole,” she shouts over the crowd and the fireworks and the sound of the tide rolling in, and several people next to them turn from the sky to watch this altercation. “I’m _gorgeous_ ,” and Rickon’s heart swells to hear her say what he’s known since the moment he laid eyes on her.

“Fuck _you,_ bitch,” he says, “who the hell do you think you are?” He takes two steps towards her, and Rickon grips the neck of the bottle, spilling wine on his hand as he tilts it, fully prepared to beat this guy over the head with it, but then there’s Mr. and Mrs. Blackbar and their quarterback of a son looming behind him. The son bumps the blond guy with his massive shoulder, sending him staggering towards Shireen, who is facing him off with her hands clenched into fists, and she raises one, ready to strike. Rickon grins darkly; he couldn’t be prouder if he hit the guy himself.

“There a problem here?” Mr. Blackbar is a swarthy guy, the kind of man you think of manning pirate ships, and his implications are clear. The blonde guy yammers his excuses and practically sprints away, though when he’s far enough down the beach they can hear shouts of _Fucking pussy_  and _what an ugly bitch_.

“I could tell that guy was a jackass all the way down by the water,” Mrs. Blackbar says, giving Shireen a THC-cloaked hug before waving dreamily at Rickon. Of all the people to come to the rescue, it’s stoned-as-all-get out Mrs. Blackbar. “Let us know if he comes back, you two. Can’t let a guy like that ruin the honeymoon, right?”

Shireen turns on the blanket towards Rickon, letting loose a breath she must have been holding in for some time. She walks into his chest, knowing full well he’ll wrap his arm around her, his hand a firm grip on her shoulder.

“God, what a fucker,” she says, but he lowers his head to breathe a _Shhh_ in her ear, turning her around with the arm across her back so she can see the tail end of the finale. He drinks from the wine bottle before handing it over to his wife, who takes a long and steady pull from it, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Forget that guy,” he says, and when the last firework explodes it is a riot of champagne, a pure gold sparkle and snazzle. It blinds him, sends a wave of _Ooohs_ and _Ahhhs_ all down the beach, and when he closes his eyes after it’s over the sight is burned onto the insides of his eyelids. It’s perfect, just like she is. Rickon bows his head and points. “That one, right there, Shir. That was all you, wifey,” he says, tipping his head to look at her profile, at the way she smiles up at the night sky.

They pack up and leave when it’s been a month and the money’s almost run out, when Davos calls Shireen’s cellphone and tells them the parlor isn’t going to run itself, and when he slams shut the tailgate after loading his bike it’s with a heavy heart. It’s been a severance from reality, a joining of two people, a sweet four weeks of bliss and sea salt and summer, sunburned shoulders and street tacos, the feel of her knees on either side of him as they streak down the interstate on his bike. He’s sad to leave it, sad to say goodbye to the ocean and the sand that’s been between his toes and stuck to the webs of his fingers for a month, sad to see the sun slide across the sky and sink towards the watery horizon as he drives north up Highway 1.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun,” Shireen shouts over the wind-whip hours later as they rumble and rattle past Morrow Bay. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so free, and who can say that after getting married, hmm?”

 She’s got her legs crossed at the ankle, her feet resting on the side mirror outside the open window as she watches her hand rise and fall on the stream of wind that howls by. He lets his glance linger on her, on the way the dying sun just catches the length of her thighs as it shines through his window onto her skin and the tattoos that snake down past her knees. The hem of her sundress has slid almost completely into her lap, and he succumbs to the temptation to grab her thigh, squeezing it with his fingers between her legs before picking up her hand and bringing it to his mouth.

“Same here,” he says, kissing her knuckles. He is delighted to taste the sea on her skin, to taste his honeymoon on his wife, and he licks the back of her hand, hungry for more, hungry for her laughter that stirs and mingles in the open air, the rush of the interstate as they barrel back to Spokane, and Rickon reminds himself to carry her over the threshold once they get back home.


End file.
